COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Secretary of State Colin Powell ended a five-day tour Friday of areas damaged by the Asian tsunami by inspecting destruction in a Sri Lankan coastal province and promising the country's residents that "we will be here for a long period of time."

Powell, who visited Indonesia and Thailand earlier this week, flew by helicopter to the area around the southern city of Galle, a one-time Dutch colonial settlement that lost 4,100 of its 991,000 residents to the waves. Powell could see how the tsunami had tossed fishing boats on the beach, torn huge sections of railroad tracks from their beds and destroyed row upon row of buildings along the coast.

Thirteen days after the catastrophe, the streets were beginning to bustle with residents who were scraping debris from their yards and beginning repairs on their buildings. The odor of rotting led many to cover their faces with white cloths.

Powell greeted victims and relief workers at an emergency center set up in a Galle school by Red Cross-Red Crescent and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Children waiting in line for medical exams or supplies waved to Powell. Elderly people shook his hand or pressed their hands together in a gesture of respect. One of the volunteers handed Powell a poem about the tsunami that began "It was a blue sea/A beauty to see/Coming in on us ..."

Powell promised, "I will show this to President Bush."

He told reporters that the United States had spent about $25 million so far in Sri Lanka and was prepared to send more.

He was asked at a news conference whether the arrival of a contingent of Marines, who were sent to help rebuild roads, meant that the United States intended to play a bigger role in the dispute between the government and ethnic Tamil separatists.

"The United States' military presence is strictly for humanitarian purposes and not in any way to influence the political outcome one way or another," Powell said.

Powell is stepping down as secretary of state within days, and the trip is likely to be his last as the top U.S. diplomat.

Sri Lanka: 750,000 affected

A United Nations official said Friday that at least 750,000 people have been affected in Sri Lanka but predicted that by this weekend, relief workers will have reached everyone who needs it with food and basic survival goods.

At UN headquarters in New York, humanitarian coordinator Kevin Kennedy called the relief operation a "very significant achievement," and described the difficulty of coordinating an effort involving 12 countries, 11 militaries and dozens of aid groups and UN agencies.

Kennedy said aid workers had yet to reach all areas, and the top priority remains getting aid to people in Indonesia, which is "the heart of the crisis." He estimated that as many as 200 villages on the western coast of Sumatra are unreachable by land and have yet to receive emergency food, water and medical help.

Overall, the official death toll from the tsunami climbed to 147,000 Friday, and authorities held out little hope for tens of thousands still missing, The Associated Press reported.

Indonesia said searchers found 7,118 more bodies in the shattered coastal town of Meulaboh, where families picked through piles of rubble. Indian officials raised that country's toll by 310, most of them killed in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where 5,600 were missing and presumed dead.

Sweden, Britain and France said they feared that nearly 1,100 of their citizens missing in the disaster were dead.

"I have never seen such utter destruction, mile after mile," he said after surveying the area. "And you wonder where are the people, what happened to them?"

Military helicopters from Indonesia, the U.S., Australia and Singapore are carrying supplies to remote areas, but they can haul only about a half-ton of supplies at a time, a small fraction of the 10 to 20 tons that trucks can haul. The UN has asked for military help to repair bridges and roads to speed delivery.

Others flying over Sumatra have reported a veritable skeleton coast, with bodies still floating at sea, AP reported. Bleached concrete pads are all that is left of substantial structures. A few intact mosques rise eerily from wasteland.

U.S. Navy pilots and crewmen returning to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln after seven hours of non-stop flying struggled to describe the devastation.

"You can't really explain. There used to be towns and cities there. All the people once had homes, lives," said Petty Officer 1st Class Scott Wickland of Cumberland, Wis. "Now there is nothing."

At the Thai resort of Phuket, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw was similarly moved by the suffering in Thailand, which has 5,291 confirmed deaths and 3,716 missing, many of them vacationing foreigners.

"Bodies are still being washed up and unearthed," he said. "The scale of the effort still required is truly daunting."

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Where to donate for S. Asian relief

In the Chicago area, the following are among those involved in tsunami relief: